7 most common mistakes made when building your empire

Wouldn't you love it if someone told you how to avoid all the mistakes you've made over the last 5 years? 10 years even?

Some mistakes teach necessary lessons that have played a huge role in where you are today, but some situations only cost you time. People may argue that success happens in God’s perfect timing or the Universe’s timing and so that's why we go through so many obstacles to reach our goals. I believe that's true but...

Well, we were also created with brains to learn and seek counsel from those who have been there done that. And it's wise to learn from others’ mistakes, especially when you're starting a business and need to start making an income quickly.

I have started 4 businesses in the last 5 years and every startup has been quicker and easier!

So I want to share the top 7 mistakes that I made in my budding years and that I see my clients making when they first come to me.

Mistake #1 Being flaky.

It's hard to be consistent! I hear you. I’ve been there. But, consistency is key to your online business success. There are dozens of other influencers in your industry who are tweeting, posting in Facebook groups, hosting challenges, giving webinars, live streaming, etc. If you want to be the one they stop scrolling to listen to, you have to be consistent with your content and keep the value pouring out. A way to make this easier on yourself and a way to attract a large crowd, is to run a series. Maybe you host a 31 day detox or 21 productivity practices to a more efficient life. The concept is that you outline your content for 21 or 31 days and deliver a piece of that content every single day until you’ve completed it! This works because your audience is expecting the next piece to the puzzle every single day and they’re ready to hang out with YOU because they’ve been anticipating it.

Mistake #2 Not putting yourself out there.

Afraid of YouTube, giving webinar presentations, hosting a podcast, writing a blog for everyone to see or hosting a Facebook group where you're the leader? You need to bust through that block TODAY. You won't make it in the online business world unless you give it your all and your all means putting yourself out there even when you're nervous about it! Do what it takes and don't think twice about it.

Mistake #3 Limiting, negative mindset.

When you have a poverty, desperate, I’m not gonna get any clients this month mindset, success will be extremely hard for you to accomplish. It will be hard for you to work efficiently because your emotions won't have high energy, instead you'll feel stressed, anxious and desperate. Those negative emotions will overflow into how you pitch your products. People can sense desperation and desperation portrays that you're not making sales and that your product must not be good enough to buy. BUT IT IS good enough! You just have to believe that and go into every situation with the thought “I’m about to make 10 sales!” In order to make 10 sales you have to believe and know that you’re capable of making 10 sales.

Mistake #4 Being impersonal in writing and speaking.

I used to write and speak as if I were a super professional know it all. I didn't create any meaningful relationships because my audience wasn't getting to know the real me. As soon as I started being my awkward self that says “freaking” all the time and “umm” because I'm human and want to talk to you guys without having a million talking bullet points, I've really gotten to know my audience. I receive emails back, Facebook messages, and more comments on my posts just engaging with me. Relationships are important for success because the connection sells. How are you making a connection?

Mistake #5 Not outsourcing.

You may not be ready for this step yet and that’s ok! I wasn’t until about a year into my business. But I have to tell you that the sooner you outsource some of your to-do list, the more you can accomplish and the more money you will make. Delegating has allowed me to create more content for more in depth webinar workshops, to be really present with my daughter throughout the day instead of multitasking, and to just focus on the content and the message I want to get to you guys because I don't have to spend hours designing PDFs!

Mistake #6 Not investing in training and help to move forward faster.

To stay ahead of the game you don't need to constantly be in catch up mode correct? That doesn't add up. To stay ahead of the game, you have to quickly GET AHEAD and follow someone you admire to stay ahead. (Or you could just work all day every single day and figure it out, but you may experience burnout and not want to work on your biz at all. Been there.) After hustling on my own for nearly a year and working 10 hours a day without making more than $200 a month, I finally decided I needed to get AHEAD of the game and get out of catch-up mode. I hired my first business coach and after one month my income was up $500, then $1000, and then I kept giving myself a raise because someone was showing me where to spend my time and the best way to get my message out there.

Mistake #7 Always consuming and comparing other’s content.

There is a lot of really good, free and paid content out there but here's the thing, each and every day is one day that you could be closer to reaching your business goals. Every hour is one hour that you could have been creating your next sales funnel, webinar, online course, email sequence, etc. Use your time to take action! Commit to investing time into ONE training or one mentor’s advice and spend the rest of your time taking action for YOUR ideas and YOUR dream. Don't fall into the never ending cycle of fulfilling others’ dreams by sitting there inhaling their content all day every day. You have your own dreams to fulfill.

The Visionary Inventive is your one stop shop to get you through the progression of your business quickly. You can stop over consuming, put every other training down and get ahead of the game right now.

My 4-month private program is fast paced and is for you if you're looking to create buzz around your name and your product, create sales pages that sell for you, create sales funnels that bring in money on autopilot, help you gain media exposure, and more.

Download my Launch Mode Blueprint that shows you how to launch your next product online for maximum exposure + sales!

In the spring of 2016, I noticed something was going on in my business. Everything was fine, but that was the problem. It was just fine. Ever since I had started teaching infopreneurship, my growth was quick, but over time, it was getting harder to grow my email list, find new leads and increase my exposure in my niche.

I was already doing all the traditional marketing methods you’re “supposed” to be doing: social media, podcast interviews, guest posting. They were working, but it took so long to see results.

What I wanted was a way to give my business a serious boost fast. That’s when I decided to host a virtual summit.

A virtual summit is an online conference. A host records interviews with industry experts which are then broadcast for a limited amount of time online for attendees to watch for free.

I had heard about the benefits of hosting a virtual summit, which is why I decided to give it a try, but deep down, I still remained a tad skeptical. Would this really grow my business quickly like everyone says?

At the beginning of August 2016, I hosted my annual Infopreneur Summit for the first time, and the ways in which it grew my business far exceeded my expectations.

In this post, I would like to share with you some of those benefits, and lay out 5 reasons that you should consider hosting a virtual summit to give your business a serious boost!

Reason #1: Grow Your Email List

During a virtual summit, you’ll be broadcasting your influencer interviews live to the attendees free for a limited time, but to get access to the links to watch these interviews, people must register (a.k.a. opt-in to your email list)! These free interviews act like a really high-value lead magnet, attracting your ideal audience members, and since you’ll have your entire lineup of guest speakers promoting your event, you’ll be driving tons of traffic to your virtual summit opt-in page at once.

During my first virtual summit, I was able to increase my email subscribers by 1,170!

Reason #2: Increase Membership in Your Online Community

It can be really hard to drive membership to your online community, can’t it? I was discovering that in 2016 as I had recently started my own Facebook group, the Infopreneur Community. Thankfully, the first Infopreneur Summit helped me solve this problem. By sending out an automatic email to every attendee who registered for the event, encouraging them to join my Facebook group, I was able to kickstart my online community in no time! I just had to make it very clear that inside the group they would be receiving real-time updates and information about the summit they would not want to miss.

Reason #3: Earn Revenue

Virtual summits often get touted as simply an effective marketing tool, but they are so much more than that. By offering an All-Access Pass for sale, you can earn revenue while hosting your summit, too! Since you’ll only be broadcasting your interviews live for a short period of time, it’s likely some attendees will miss an interview they really wanted to see. By offering a membership site where paying clients can receive lifetime access to the summit interviews in an “All-Access Pass”, you can earn revenue from your event, and you can even afford to offer your guest speakers affiliate commissions for their referral sales!

I was able to earn over $4,000 in additional business revenue the week of my first virtual summit.

Reason #4: Form Relationships with Influencers

Perhaps one of the greatest reasons of all that you should consider hosting your own virtual summit is the large number of relationships that you will form with influencers in your field. Cold emailing others in your niche with whom you’d like to connect can be awkward, but hosting your own virtual summit gives you a reason to collaborate. By offering them the chance to gain new exposure to a large audience through your event, you are creating value in their business. You can then leverage these relationships to form future business partnerships once your summit is over.

I forged 27 solid business relationships with influencers in my niche through my first virtual summit.

Reason #5: Seize New Opportunities for Exposure and Visibility

Hosting a virtual summit is one the best ways that you can get your name out there in your niche. You are getting exposure to a much wider audience at a fast rate, and just like a live in-person event, there’s a lot of buzz surrounding the summit which helps people to notice you. The benefit of all this added attention is the way it positions you as an authoritative voice in your field. Suddenly, everyone sees you as the ‘go-to’ expert, and with that label comes a plethora of new opportunities to be featured elsewhere: podcasts, guest posts, media outlets and more!

Since I hosted my first Infopreneur Summit, I have received substantially more opportunities for podcast interviews, guest posting, and more!

If these reasons for hosting your own virtual summit have piqued your interest, then I would encourage you to give it a try! Absolutely nothing I have done to market and grow my business was as effective in such a short period of time.

I’ve distilled the path I followed to launch my first Infopreneur Summit into an easy-to-follow 12-step process which I share in my Virtual Summit Set: a free package of materials including an ebook, planning worksheet, speaker checklist, and 3-day email course!

You have something special to offer the world and you’ve packaged your expertise into a free or paid offering.

But there's one little problem... You don't have a huge following and don't know how to gain exposure on your masterpiece.

It's time to go into LAUNCH MODE! (Kind of like beast mode. Well honestly the two should be interchangable.)

Going into launch mode means that you spend a scheduled period of time (usually 3 to 4 weeks) creating buzz around your offering.

Pin it for later!

I hate to break it to you, but there is no ONE perfect launch plan.

Some business owners LOVE giving live webinars, some swear by Periscope, and others have loads of success with email challenges. Your launches will all look a little different because different strategies will tap into your passions. But what I do have is a blueprint that I have used time and time again that has brought me amazing results - massive leaps in exposure AND sales. I’ll be giving you a list of strategies for you to pick and choose what you’d like to implement and then you simply plug them into the provided blueprint.

Your launch can be as extravagant or as simple as you'd like. You can load yourself up and work long hours implementing anything and everything, or you can choose a few strategies that will still work wonders but will allow you more time freedom during your launch.

This workbook was created to inform you of my launch strategies that have been a huge success in my businesses and to help you figure out which tactics you would like to implement. I have also created an example schedule to show you when to put those strategies to work throughout your launch. Timing is everything!

Launching is never easy. There's a lot more work to do compared to the everyday life in your business. You will be hosting more events and creating double the amount of content. When you experience the results, you'll see that going into launch mode is more than worth it and super exciting! Lots to do, so let’s get to work!

I don’t necessarily enjoy writing; however, I do love producing blog content to connect with you and help you grow your business. After you read my blog, I hope you leave feeling inspired and motivated to go out and take action towards your business dreams.

So, if you’ve been wondering whether you need to add a blog to your new business site, in short, my answer is yes.

You could get away with just marketing the crap out of your sales page, but I can’t guarantee that that will be enough to convince your website visitors to hand you their hard earned cash.

If you've been following me for any period of time, then you know how passionate I am about having the freedom of time - time to go to the pool all day on a random weekday, stay at home with my new baby girl and barely lift a finger for the first two months (without my income suffering), and time to spend every minute that I can with my husband while he isn't at the baseball stadium.

I pursued my entrepreneurial dream because I didn't want to work from 9 am to 5 pm every single day. So why would I come home and work for myself only to find myself working MORE hours?? That seems a bit twisted.

I’m just going to dive right into where I was a year ago before I tell you how I make a full-time income working 3 hours a day and why it’s important for you to work the hours you desire as well.